Posts Tagged ‘NHTSA’

Charge: NHTSA sitting on pro-Toyota investigation results

A new report in the WSJ quotes a retiring NHTSA official as saying higher-ups are refusing to release the results of the agency’s staff investigation into charges of Toyota sudden acceleration, because those findings are not unfavorable enough toward the automaker. I’ve got more detail in a new post at Cato at Liberty, and Ted covers the story at PoL.

Meanwhile, proponents of a sweeping expansion of federal auto safety law, one that would thrust Washington much more deeply into the operations of the automotive industry, are really in a hurry — a quick, urgent, must-do-now hurry — to pass it, even though many of its provisions have not had much airing in public debate. An editorial today in the New York Times — a newspaper that almost comically underplayed the revelations earlier this month about the NHTSA probe’s pro-Toyota results — flatly asserts that the Japanese automaker’s vehicles suffer “persistent problems of uncontrolled acceleration,” and demands that the sweeping new legislation “be passed into law without delay.” It’s almost as if they are afraid of what might happen if lawmakers pause to take a closer look.

Among the many other things the new legislation would do is greatly enhance the legal leverage of automaker or dealership employees who adopt the mantle of “whistleblowers”. But if the new revelations from a responsible career employee of NHTSA are ignored, we will have another confirmation that some types of whistleblowing are more welcome in America’s governing class than others. (& welcome Coyote, Gabriel Malor, Death by 1000 Papercuts, Mark Hemingway/D.C. Examiner (“the indispensable Overlawyered blog”), Allen McDuffee/Think Tanked readers).

NHTSA consumer complaint Hall of Fame

Courtesy Michael Fumento.

P.S. More seriously, Fumento has a piece out in the new Forbes about how weaknesses in the NHTSA consumer database helped fuel the Toyota panic. He provides damning details about how press outlets like CBS News, the L.A. Times and U.S. News turned “a motley collection of anecdotes, many of them absurd” in which “anybody can enter anything” into assertions that Toyota acceleration has “caused” or “led to” 89 or more deaths. Read it here, with more at CEI.

June 11 roundup

March 6 roundup

February 18 roundup

December 11 roundup

  • Key Obama regulatory appointees at NHTSA (auto safety) and FTC [commerce, antitrust] used to work for AAJ, the trial lawyers’ lobby [Wood, PoL]
  • “Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: Muscle, Talent, Results, and Terrible Acting” [Above the Law]
  • Why so many great folk musicians are barred from U.S. tours [Jesse Walker/Reason, WSJ Law Blog]
  • Folks behind venerable Martindale-Hubbell lawyer directory wouldn’t stoop to comment spam, or would they? [Turkewitz and more; related Popehat, Bennett]
  • Palestinian sues Baron Cohen, Letterman, others over “Bruno” portrayal [AP/Baltimore Sun]
  • A Rhode Island hospital settles a med mal case [White Coat]
  • For a “cockeyed caravan” of law stories, follow a certain site (thanks!) [Arthur Charity, NJEsq.net, alas it seems a short-lived venture]
  • Santa’s got a sleighful of health and safety problems [Bella English, Boston Globe]

“Enviros Forced NHTSA Nominee To Withdraw”

Chuck Hurley withdrew not because of the many liberty-hostile positions taken by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but because of one of the issues on which he was right, namely, recognizing that there’s a tradeoff between fuel-economy-regulation-driven downsizing of vehicles and occupant safety, an inconvenient truth some environmental and consumer groups would rather not acknowledge. [National Journal, Fleet Owner, AP/Tacoma News Tribune]